History

KPOL

Channel 40 was originally home to an English-language independent station, known as KPOL, which signed on the air January 5, 1985.[1] At the same time, KDTU (now KTTU) signed on with a similar format. Tucson was too small to support both stations, so KPOL filed for bankruptcy in 1988 and went dark in 1989. The license remained active.

KHRR

In 1991, local Tucson businessman Jay Zucker purchased the dormant KPOL license out of bankruptcy, and on July 1, 1992, channel 40 signed on as KHRR with Telemundo programming. Zucker owned the station until 1998, when he sold it to The Apogee Companies, who maintained the Telemundo affiliation.

KHRR became a Telemundo O&O in 2002, along with KDRX-CA (now KDPH-LP). The two stations maintained a sister relationship, sharing their newscasts and programming stations, yet with each station based out of its own city of license. The arrangement continued until a 2006 station swap relocated Telemundo O&O KPHZ to Phoenix, Arizona, where it became KTAZ, and Daystar O&O KDTP to Holbrook, Arizona. The deal also transferred KDRX-CA to Daystar, where it became KDTP-CA.

In 2007, a restructuring plan by parent company NBC Universal, called "NBCU 2.0", moved the KHRR & KTAZ newscasts to the Telemundo News Hub in Dallas, along with news operations of other Telemundo stations in the West.

Digital television

Digital channels

In their Sixth Report and Order, dated April 3, 1997, proposing a digital television table of allotments, the FCC allocated UHF channel 41 for the KHRR-DT operations.[3] However, by February 1998, the DTV Table of Allotments had been changed to specify channel 42 for KHRR-DT.[4] KHRR applied for DTV facilities to broadcast at 303 kW in October 1999, and eventually amended the ERP to 411.5kW in February 2002.[5][6] In May 2003, in order to meet an FCC deadline for having a digital television station operational, KHRR requested a Special Temporary Authorization (STA) to operate at 12.7kW, which the FCC granted the following month.[7] After delays due to coordination with the Mexican government, interference issues, and the sale of the station from the Apogee Companies to NBC Telemundo, by June 2006, the station was still operating under their STA facilities, the STA having been extended several times. Having to meet another FCC deadline to have fully operational facilities by June 30, 2006, KHRR requested to make their STA facilities permanent.[8] The FCC granted the request on July 10, 2006, and the next day, KHRR applied for a license to cover their facilities, from which they were already broadcasting. The FCC granted the license on January 31, 2007.[9]